


Lexis

by Anonymous



Series: Within/Without [19]
Category: 9-1-1 (TV)
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M, Post Season 3, background maddie/chimney, family family family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-19
Updated: 2020-07-19
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:54:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,588
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25384870
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: There was so much of her brother—he was a full foot taller than her, all broad shoulders and solid muscle—but he had a way of shrinking into himself and giving the illusion of smallness when he was unhappy or uncertain about something. He didn’t look unhappy today, but he did look nervous.Buck tries to confide in Maddie, but their conversation goes a little off the rails. Misunderstandings ensue, and Maddie gets tripped up in words. (post S3)
Relationships: Evan "Buck" Buckley & Eddie Diaz (9-1-1 TV), Evan "Buck" Buckley/Eddie Diaz (9-1-1 TV)
Series: Within/Without [19]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1738876
Comments: 55
Kudos: 396
Collections: Anonymous





	Lexis

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kitkat0723](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kitkat0723/gifts).



> This one is for @kitkat0723, in gratitude for all of the encouragement since the beginning.

Maddie tried not to grimace as her little brother slathered his bagel with cream cheese and piled lox on top. She shouldn’t have suggested breakfast; mornings were a dicey time for her these days, and she rarely felt like eating until noon. She concentrated on breathing through her mouth, on looking anywhere but at Evan devouring his breakfast.

“So, what did you want to talk to me about?” She was praying he’d come to talk about himself, not ask her any questions. She and Howie had decided to keep their news to themselves until she made it through the first trimester. _If_ she made it through the first trimester. A geriatric pregnancy—Maddie’s mouth had fallen open in outrage when her ob-gyn used that expression—placed her in the “high risk” group. So why get everyone’s hopes up until it was a reasonably sure thing? They had all had front row seats to Hen and Karen’s IVF debacle last winter, and if Maddie was going to suffer an early miscarriage, she didn’t need the entire 118 bearing witness to it, thanks.

So no one knew yet. Not even her brother. Supposedly because Buck couldn’t keep a secret: he would tell Eddie, he would tell Bobby. But really because she feared the rollercoaster of his emotions: he would be joyful when he found out, then devastated if she lost it. Evan had always felt things very keenly, ever since he was a child. His capacity for empathy was so vast that it overwhelmed her sometimes, forced her to feel things she preferred to keep locked away—

“Maddie?”

“Yes, sorry. I’m here.” She smiled at him, but the little smear of cream cheese over his lip was making her nauseous. “You’ve got a little bit of… right there…”

“Thanks.” He wiped it away with a knuckle, licked his finger clean.

Disgusting.

She took a queasy sip of tea. “So…?”

“Right, yeah.” He put his bagel down. There was so much of her brother—he was a full foot taller than her, all broad shoulders and solid muscle—but he had a way of shrinking into himself and giving the illusion of smallness when he was unhappy or uncertain about something. He didn’t look unhappy today, but he did look nervous, knee bouncing restlessly under the table. “I do. Yeah.” 

“Is it bad? You’re acting weird.”

“No, not bad. At least, I don’t think so.” He folded his napkin into a fan. 

“Buck…” she urged.

“Okay, okay. Uh.” He took a breath. “You’re the first person I’m telling, so I don’t really know how to, um…”

Now he was making _her_ nervous. “Is it your leg?” she demanded. “Is there another blood clot, Evan?”

“What? No. _No._ Leg’s great. _I’m_ great. I’m… Well, I guess I should just come out and say it. Haha.” He was actually sweating, she noted with alarm, his white t-shirt becoming translucent where it stuck to his chest. “I’ve thought about it a lot. And I think I’m bisexual.”

“Oh!” Maddie said. 

“Yeah.”

“Oh!” Whatever revelation she had braced for, this was not it.

“…Yeah.”

“Oh!”

“I think we’re looping,” Buck said.

“Right, sorry!” Maddie felt like an idiot. “Congratulations—or no, that’s not the right thing to—. Obviously I love and support you, and this changes nothing between us. I’m really happy that you told me! And proud of you, for figuring out something so important about yourself.” Had she covered all the right bases? She would have to ask Josh later.

“Thanks, Maddie.” His smile was quizzical. “To be honest, I thought your response was gonna be ‘Yeah, Buck, I know.’”

“That’s not the kind of assumption I’d make about anybody, least of all you,” Maddie told him. “I mean, I’m not, like, _shocked_ —”

He rolled his eyes.

“—but I haven’t been sitting around, wondering if you were ever going to come out to me. You’ve always just been _you_ to me, Evan. Anything you do, or feel, it’s because you’re you, and as far as I’m concerned, that takes precedent over trying to fit you into a box, or putting a label on you—until you specifically tell me that there’s a label or a box that you want, okay?”

“This label—I’m pretty sure it’s the right one,” he said.

“Then that’s wonderful.”

He smiled, properly. “Thanks for being cool, Maddie. I mean, I thought you would, but. Ha. You probably think it’s weird that I’m only just figuring this out now, huh?” 

“Not weird,” she said firmly. “Everyone goes at their own pace, and sexuality is a—”

“—spectrum—”

“And it’s also—”

“—fluid—”

“I’m trying to make a nice speech!” she exclaimed. “Stop stealing all the buzzwords!”

“Sorry.” He made a contrite face and mimed zipping his lips.

“That’s all I had!”

“It was a great speech,” Buck consoled her, and he reached across the table to squeeze her hand. “Thank you. Again.” 

“Can I ask, though…” She hesitated.

Her brother grinned, loose and easy now. “You can ask me anything.”

“Can I ask if this realization of yours—about being bisexual—if it has anything to do with Eddie?” Maddie inquired carefully. Eddie had been on her mind for a while, and Evan had inadvertently given her an excuse to broach the subject.

“Oh, it has _everything_ to do with Eddie,” he said, chuckling.

“It—it does?” She’d anticipated a much more circuitous path to this conclusion.

“I’m totally in love with him, Maddie, and it’s _awesome_ ,” Buck said, suddenly brimming with enthusiasm. His eyes lit up in that feverish, dilated way that had always made her think of a cat about to lunge for someone’s foot. “Like, maybe in the past I was attracted to the occasional dude, but I never gave it much thought, never needed to, ’cause there were always so many— _too_ many—women I was more interested in. But with Eddie—I never had a fucking choice, Maddie, ’cause he’s, like, _all_ I think about, it’s crazy, he’s the whole reason why I—”

“Evan.”

“What?”

“I’m actually a little concerned about this… Eddie situation,” Maddie said.

“ _Situation_?” Buck raised his eyebrows.

“I have been for a while, to be honest. Because it’s obvious how much he means to you…” Obvious how much her brother adored Eddie Diaz, his best friend, his partner, his soul-brother. Buck’s two-pronged announcement— _I’m bisexual_ and _I’m in love with him_ —changed everything and nothing.

“Yeah?” he prompted.

“I know you love Eddie, and of course Christopher, too, but I worry you’ve gotten so caught up in their family that you’ve put your own life on hold.”

“Maddie—”

“No, Evan, let me finish. You would do anything for your friends, and I _love_ that about you, but I’m concerned you’re doing _too_ much for Eddie. I’m not saying he takes advantage of you,” she added hastily, as Buck opened his mouth to protest, “but I think he does get more out of the relationship than you do. And if you’re in love with him, that puts you in the position of—”

“Hold up, Maddie, I think you’ve got the wrong—”

“I know we’ve always teased you about having a boy-crush on Eddie,” she went on, a little desperately, “and I know the 118 has some silly bet about the two of you kissing or getting married or whatever it is, but now—I mean now that you’ve realized you might want to date men and possibly have a future with one—I don’t want to see you get hurt, pining after someone you can’t have.”

She stared into his eyes, to drive her point home. She half-expected tears, or even anger, but instead Buck just looked…baffled.

“Why… can’t I have Eddie?” he said blankly.

“Because he’s…” Maddie liked Eddie, she did, but she also had certain reservations. The primary reservation being how little she knew him, even after almost two years of knowing him. There was something profoundly _un_ knowable about Eddie Diaz: he carried himself so confidently and seemed perfectly in control of every situation, yet he remained a total enigma. Maddie knew he’d served in Afghanistan and come back a hero. She knew his wife had run away, returned two years later, and died in an accident; she assumed that was behind his illegal street-fighting phase last fall. The man was undeniably a devoted father—and Christopher was an exceptional child—but she always felt shy around him, uncomfortable, probably because her brother was so _fixated_ on him, and sometimes she felt like Eddie didn’t like her, even though he’d never been anything but courteous and solicitous…

Her stomach was churning. The sight of Evan’s half-eaten bagel, with its enormous teetering pile of lox, made the bile rise in her throat. She was probably going to be sick very shortly, which was inconvenient, because her brother had ears like a fox and he’d start interrogating her about why she was throwing up, and—

“Because he’s straight,” she said, digging her fingernails into her palms, trying to make her stomach stay put by sheer force of will.

Buck opened his mouth. And then he closed it. 

“I mean—isn’t he? But that’s beside the point.” Now _she_ was the one sweating. She felt hot, dizzy. The smell of lox was overpowering, like she was trapped inside a giant festering salmon. “Evan, you give so much to people, and when you fall in love, I want it to be with someone who will give you just as much in return. And Eddie—I know he’s, like, really good-looking, and your best friend, but—I just don’t think he’s capable of being that person for you.”

“Maddie,” Buck said, “you don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.” 

And he stood up and walked out of her apartment without another word.

Maddie didn’t make it to the bathroom. She threw up in the sink instead. 

*

She fretted over it all day.

_I’m sorry I upset you._

_I’m just trying to protect you from getting hurt again._

_Because I love you._

Evan didn’t reply to any of her texts.

All night she fretted too, unable to tell Chimney why she was so distracted. She couldn’t explain without outing her brother, and Chim was the ringleader of the Buck-Eddie firehouse wager. Which wasn’t funny anymore, because Buck _did_ love Eddie. And that troubled her deeply. 

Maddie had always liked rules. She was very committed to the idea of meritocracy—it was the fundamental principle undergirding her life. When she was a child, some part of her had always expected any nearby adults to be spontaneously applauding her efforts. Frank told her it was probably the result of having such cold parents, their affection endlessly deferred to some future time. Which was why Doug had exerted such a powerful hold over her; she’d been easily led, easily gaslit, desperate for his approval. And he’d given it to her, selectively, when it suited him. Usually after he hit her. 

Even now, Maddie urgently wanted people to like her.

Her brother was similar. He loved extravagantly, excessively, and seemed surprised when his love wasn’t returned in kind—by Abby, by Ali, by Eddie Diaz. He deserved to find someone who could be to him what Howie was to her: love without strings, tricks, or traps. 

Lying beside Chimney that night, she dreamed of Doug. She dreamed he was the doctor delivering her baby; he wrenched it out of her body and took it away with him. _Oh, Maddie, you know you’re not fit to be a mother._ She tried to chase after him, but her body betrayed her. Legs like weights, she couldn’t run. Blood everywhere. Evan was there, and so was Eddie Diaz. She asked them to help her find her baby. _What baby?_ Evan said. _Maddie, there is no baby._ She tried to explain to them that yes, there was a baby and Doug had stolen it, but Eddie told her no. _Just move on,_ he advised, _that’s what I do. Forget about it._

And she did want to forget.

Because it was important not to keep memories: they only tied her to a past she had tried to abandon. Chimney remembered everything; he was always asking _do you remember the time…? do you remember when…?_ But Maddie never consciously tried to remember anything. If someone asked her what color Doug’s eyes had been, she would tell that person she didn’t know, she’d forgotten. And it would be the truth.

But in dreams, it was different. Her brain generated dreams without her permission, precisely to preserve memories and experiences and stupid wayward impulses for all eternity, even the dead ones that only caused her pain, the ones from which she most wanted to be free. Every dreamscape was full of psychological contortions and self-surprises.

Doug’s eyes were brown.

*

Maddie only stirred sleepily when Chimney kissed her goodbye in the morning. He’d wanted to do more than kiss her, he was very taken with the secondary effects of her pregnancy. What she called bloated, he called voluptuous. But she was too groggy to oblige. She continued to doze after he left, her dreams like cobwebs around the edges of her consciousness. Terrible dreams, but a few more hours of sleep would clear them away…

A loud banging noise startled her awake. She moaned, pulling the pillow over her head, and willed it to go away.

After a moment’s pause, the banging resumed.

Someone was knocking at the door, and they weren’t going away.

She felt the first wave of nausea as soon as she stood up. Oh god, would it ever stop? Dragging her robe on over her nightgown, she shuffled miserably to the door and peered through the spyhole.

It was Eddie Diaz, wearing a ferocious scowl, and behind him, her brother.

Oh god.

Maddie opened the door, and Eddie marched right in, Buck trailing after him. Presumably they had the same early shift as Chimney, so what were they doing here at her apartment instead of at the station? Unless—

Oh god. Oh god.

“Is Howie dead?” she asked in a tiny voice.

“What? Chimney? Of course he’s not dead,” her brother said, looking confused. “Not unless you know something we don’t?”

“No!” She sagged against the wall, limp with relief. “The two of you showing up here, I thought—”

“If something’d happened to Chim, it would be Bobby here with me, not Eddie, and we probably would’ve called ahead,” Buck pointed out. 

“Right, of course. Of course.”

Pulse slowing, she considered them again. Eddie stood in the doorway, arms folded, while her brother shifted his weight nervously and then made a sudden beeline for the fridge. He took out the lox and cream cheese from yesterday and started rummaging through the pantry. Maddie wanted to ask him not to unwrap the lox in front her—he could take it with him, she didn’t care, she just didn’t want to smell it right now—

“So… what are you doing here, then?” she said, because she could face a pissed-off Eddie Diaz more comfortably than cured salmon this morning.

Eddie frowned at her. “Listen, Maddie, I know you don’t like me much, but—”

So Evan had gone running to Eddie after their conversation yesterday and tattled. He was such a little shit sometimes. “I like you!” she interrupted. “Eddie, I like you just fine.”

“Well, clearly you don’t like the idea of Buck and…” Eddie cleared his throat, his cheeks going a bit red. Maddie didn’t think she’d ever seen him blush before. “You don’t like him being my family.”

Over in the kitchen, her brother clattered silverware but said nothing. Was he really going to let Eddie rip her a new one without intervening on her behalf? He was such an absolute _shit._

“I’m just being protective,” she said, as calmly as she could manage. Buck had put her in the impossible position of apologizing to Eddie, in spite of—or perhaps because of—what he’d confided in her. She was going to rip _him_ a new one, the next time she got him alone. “I don’t know what Buck told you, Eddie, but when he came over yesterday, I just tried to have a conversation with him about boundaries. Don’t me wrong, I know how much you and Christopher mean to him—”

“Well, yeah, obviously,” Eddie said. “He’s Christopher’s parent.”

Maddie caught a whiff of lox. She could hear Evan _chewing_ , which only made it worse, and she had to close her eyes and wait for the nausea to pass. When she was able to look at Eddie again, he raised an eyebrow at her.

“You good?”

“I’m fine,” she snapped. She didn’t like what that eyebrow was insinuating. “Listen, Eddie, it’s really sweet of you to say that about Evan. You’re the best friend he’s ever had. But I’m sure you agree that he deserves to have a family of his own someday.”

“Jesus Christ, we _are_ his family!” Eddie said loudly. His flush seemed to deepen, and he rounded on Buck. “Are you gonna help me out here?”

“Nope,” her brother said, mouth full, leaning against the kitchen counter. “This was your call, man. That means _you_ do the talking.”

Eddie shoved his hands in his pockets and glared at the floor. Maddie looked from one to the other, confused and annoyed. She didn’t understand what the hell was going on, and her whole body felt sore and bloated. Her breasts were particularly tender this morning; surreptitiously, she folded her arms under them to ease the ache. She experienced a powerful surge of resentment towards the pair of them, taking up so much space in the apartment with their height and their muscles and their utter childishness. Whatever Evan was up to, it was completely unfair to her, and she needed them to go away. “I _was_ asleep, you know,” she said plaintively.

Neither of them said anything. Eddie rubbed his jaw and Evan kept eating his bagel.

“Can you please chew with your mouth closed?” she scolded. “And I think that lox has gone bad, I can smell it from here.”

“The lox is fine,” Buck said.

“Somebody better speak up, because I really can’t deal with whatever this is right now.”

Silence.

Maddie took a long-suffering breath. “I’m going to ask you both one more time: what the hell is going on here? Otherwise you can—”

“We’re together,” Eddie said.

“You’re—what?” she faltered.

“We’re together,” Eddie repeated, nodding his head at her brother. “Buck and me. That’s what I came here to say.”

He was glaring at her defiantly.

Maddie pressed her palms against the wall, dizzy.

“I know you’d rather he got his own family, not my fucked-up broken one—”

“Eddie!” Buck interjected.

“—but he chose for himself, and so did I. It’s up to us, and we’re a family now—me, him, and Christopher.”

“You’re a…” She couldn’t keep up, couldn’t process. Eddie was angry at her, he was vibrating with tension and radiating a strange desperate energy, and she felt trapped by it, by him, even though he hadn’t budged from the doorway since they came in. _Together. Family._ She didn’t understand what those words meant, unless Eddie was implying that—

“I love him back.” Eddie ran a hand through his neatly styled hair, and a lock of it flopped across his forehead. “I mean, I’m in love with him too. Okay? Buck’s my family, he’s Chris’s dad, he practically lives with us already, and we’re fuckin’ doing it.”

“Like, Biblically.” Buck smirked.

“I meant like we’re _in_ it,” Eddie amended, turning redder still.

“Again, Biblically,” Buck said. 

“Man, would you stop?”

Maddie needed to sit down, needed to—… “Like boyfriends?” she croaked.

Eddie’s reply was immediate and emphatic: “ _No._ ” 

“‘Boyfriend’ is a little too twee for Edmundo here,” her brother said, snickering.

“We’re goddamn adults,” Eddie replied, finally forsaking his spot in the doorway to join Buck in the kitchen. He came to stand behind him, not quite touching, but close enough that if Buck inhaled deeply, his back would probably brush against Eddie’s chest. “This isn’t high school. We’re together, what more do people need to hear? We already have a kid, for Christ’s sake.”

“You heard him. It’s some real adult shit.” Buck winked at her. “What order do you think we should hyphenate our names in? Buckley-Diaz or Diaz-Bu—”

“We’re not hyphenating shit, obviously you’ll take my name. Christopher doesn’t need two last names, he’s already got three middle names.”

“So much for feminism,” Buck said.

“…You’re a guy.”

“Damn, Eddie, what gave it away?” 

Maddie got the impression they’d forgotten about her. It was just as well: she was still playing catch-up. Her brother was in a relationship with Eddie. Eddie loved him back; they were in love with each other. They practically lived together. They— _we,_ Eddie had said—had a kid _._ Evan was Christopher’s dad, Christopher was Evan’s son. They were a family. Something about the familiar rhythm of their bickering, even as they argued about last names—and did that mean what she thought it meant?—finally convinced her, and the truth sank in at last.

“You’re serious,” she said slowly. “You’re not pulling my leg, this is— _real._ ” 

“You think we’d joke about something like this?” Eddie raised both eyebrows this time.

“It’s totally real, Maddie,” her brother said earnestly. “It’s what I was trying to explain yesterday, except we got a little, uh, off-track, I guess. But everything’s good now, right? No harm, no foul.”

Maddie nodded, folding her hands against her stomach.

“Me’n Eddie haven’t—nobody really knows about this—like, Christopher does, of course, and we told Eddie’s grandma, but we’d appreciate if you could hold off blabbing to Chim right away. We’re actually pretty serious about that,” Buck went on, suddenly businesslike. “We gotta talk to Bobby before the rest of the team finds out, and we’re not ready yet.”

Eddie watched her, eyes slightly narrowed, otherwise impassive.

Maddie found herself nodding again. Her brother could swear her to secrecy a thousand times over, and it wouldn’t carry half the weight of a single _look_ from Eddie. Did Eddie have any idea how imposing he could be? Of course he did. And how long had they even been together, Eddie and her brother? When the hell had all this happened?

“When,” she began, then paused as her stomach contracted. Hot saliva pooled in her mouth. “When did—” She couldn’t finish the question, pressing her lips together firmly as she fought the urge to vomit. Buck and Eddie were both staring at her.

“Mads?” her brother asked tentatively. “Is everything—”

“Are you pregnant?” Eddie demanded.

Maddie gaped at him. “Excuse me?”

“There’s prenatal vitamins on top of the fridge,” Eddie said, “and you looked ready to puke when Buck took out the lox. You’re sick in the morning, your breasts are all swollen—”

“Eddie!” her brother barked; Maddie pulled her robe more closely around her body.

“I know the signs, Buck, I remember what it was like with Shannon. Well, are you?” The force of Eddie’s gaze pinned her back against the wall. His dark eyes were sharp, but somehow warm at the same time, and for a second, Maddie understood the _why_ for her brother.

Slowly, she nodded.

“Oh my god,” Buck said, his ocean eyes, so different from hers, so different from Eddie’s, wide as dinner plates. “Really?”

She nodded again.

He let out a whoop of joy. “I’m gonna be an uncle!”

Things got a little chaotic after that. Embraces were exchanged, there was a lot of excited shouting, and then Maddie had to run to the bathroom to throw up. But this time Evan followed, and he held her hair back until she was done. He sat on the edge of the tub while she rinsed her mouth out.

“So…”

“So what?” She gargled some mouthwash.

“Happily ever after for both of us, huh?”

She looked at his reflection in the mirror. He smiled ruefully.

“You’re scared it’s gonna go away. I mean, like, that’s why you didn’t tell me, right?”

She spat out the mouthwash. “You were keeping a secret, too.”

“It wasn’t just mine to tell. The whole, like… being with a dude thing is, uh, complicated for Eddie. And I’m always wondering if he’s gonna come to his senses and tell me he made a giant mistake.”

Maddie turned around to face him. “You think Eddie’s gonna change his mind? He wants to make you Evan _Diaz._ He called you Christopher’s dad, for god’s sake. It’s much, _much_ likelier that I lose this baby than Eddie—”

“Wow, awesome attitude.”

“I’m just being—”

“Second-guessing must run in the Buckley genes. I didn’t trust it either. But it’s hard not to be happy, when Chris is your kid.” He grinned, expression almost unbearably fond. “I have a really, _really_ good feeling about this baby, Maddie.”

When they emerged from the bathroom, both of them still a little teary and red-eyed, Eddie had cleared away the offending salmon, and when Maddie cautiously sniffed the air, she smelled… citrus. 

“Sorry for going through your kitchen,” Eddie called. “I used your orange spray stuff to get rid of the fish smell, and that’s some ginger tea for you, over on the counter. Still pretty hot, so don’t burn your mouth.”

“Eds, did you actually boil water?” Buck exclaimed.

“They have an electric kettle, jackass.”

“Eddie,” she said, cradling the mug in her hands, “ _thank you._ ”

“Don’t mention it. Shannon was sick the whole first trimester, too.”

Maddie glanced at her brother, to see if he was bothered by the casual mention of Eddie’s former wife, but he was just nodding, eyes glued to his phone.

“Yeah, it says here you can even take ginger capsules as, like, some kind of prenatal supplement? And the Mayo Clinic recommends that you keep plain crackers next to your bed so you can eat a small amount as soon as you—”

“ _Evan_ ,” she said, wearily, at the same time as Eddie said, “Later, man. Save it.”

Looking slightly miffed, Buck put his phone away.

“I’m really happy for you,” she said, blowing on the tea to cool it. Even just the smell of it helped. “I realize I didn’t say that earlier.”

“Well, Eddie did come on a little harsh,” Evan said.

Eddie shrugged. “I’m always gonna stick up for my family.”

That word— _family_ —rattled round and round her brain, long after Buck and Eddie had left for work. Maddie didn’t entirely understand Eddie’s lexicon: _together, love,_ and most of all _family_ , each word deployed so forcefully and intentionally, and then the allergic reaction to _boyfriend._ She wondered if she ought to be offended on her brother’s behalf, but if Evan didn’t care, she supposed it wasn’t worth the effort. Maddie still felt that simmering current of unease that Eddie didn’t like her much. After all, he’d kind of yelled at her. But he’d only been, as he said, sticking up for his _family_ , family which meant Evan. Had anyone so belligerently stood up for Evan before? Maddie didn’t think so. She wasn’t eager to be on the receiving end again, but she approved, in principle. Buck and Eddie were doing things their own way, and it wasn’t like she and Chimney had had the most conventional of courtships either…

Maddie drank her tea and wondered if this made her and Eddie _family_ , too.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! <333


End file.
